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| - In the animal world, some animals don't evolve and haven't evolved since the dinosaurs roamed the earth. Take the alligator for example, a living dinosaur. It's a perfect survival machine for its environment so it didn't need to evolve, become more complex. Why bother when you're king of the swamp and food will just eventually drift by for you to kill it without much effort? Well let me tell what else doesn't need to evolve. PIZZA.
I could be wrong but...
Pizza is to me, just like Italian food, simple, fresh, unpretentious (there's that word again) peasant food filled with warmth and soul. Most Italian food rich, filling and made from basic ingredients that keep coming back from one recipe to another but the flavors always vary and it's got some punch to it. It's no surprise that Italian food is the most popular ethnic food the world over. Pizza has become the ultimate comfort food that everyone loves. Flatbread, tomato and cheese as the base, what could possibly go wrong?
Wolfgang Puck went wrong that's what. He popularized the California Pizza (or Gourmet Pizza) and really the fancy nancy foods they serve in those restaurants are both bland and lifeless, but hey it sure looks pretty. And of course it went through North America like a prairie fire.
Arlequino Pizzeria's Manufactured Pizza
Arlequino opened its doors this year on Drummond. The website still isn't live and very little history is known about the place. But this is of little consequence because as soon as I stepped inside the restaurant I knew this place was all about form over function...again. The entire experience is staged. Tuscan colors everywhere, chalk board menu with fine dining table setting. But sadly the service staff was uneducated and knew nothing of spices and peppers as denoted when my fellow diner asked a basic question about the spices. And also it is one noisy restaurant. I couldn't hear my fellow diner speaking to me from all of 2 and half feet from me. Antipasto served on a mini cutting board - an attempt at rusticity that fails on many levels I won't go into here - but it just wasn't antipasto to me.
But I was there with my team, manager and director and our work is driven by urgency and availability so no time for starters and such things. We went straight for the Pizza. My initial reason for going into this restaurant blind was the appeal of wood-oven baked pizza. This was dashed immediately when I received my Bari pizza. The idea sounded good on paper. Tomato sauce, Mozzarella, Rapini, and Sausage. Again I ask, what could possibly go wrong? A great many things it seems.
Cheated
As soon as I received my pizza I noticed 2 things. The glory of wood-oven baking is that TASTE OF WOOD. But this pizza was aseptic. Where were the burnt edges? Where was the powered and blackened bottom? No where to be seen. This pizza was picture perfect. The cheese unbrowned, perfectly leveled, perfect topping distribution, everything a pizza should not, especially if you wood-oven baked that baby. The second item I noticed was the sausage and immediately I knew something had gone wrong. There was nothing Italian about this sausage. And it had been sliced with a slicer, in other words purchased as is. No better than Domino's except in flavor. I would have loved handmade sausage, cut unevenly and thick. The Rapini had been steamed with nothing added and this sucked the entire flavor that would have been available out of the pizza.
Now don't get me wrong, the pizza wasn't all that bad once they added to oil and I added a pound of salt on it. So much for fine dining. At fine dining establishments salt and pepper should not even be made available on the table because the food is supposed to be salted and spiced adequately. And after eating this circle of blandness, I was not satiated - which as you know is the whole point of scarfing down some delicious pizza. Bland, soulless, un-filling and yet pretty damn pricey for Italian staples on dough.
A twelve inch very thin pizza ranges from 14 to 16 dollars. 3$ for barely a handful of extra olives. A pizza and a Coke cost me 22$ (not including tip). I can get 2 slices (which will be more pizza than I was served) and a coke for under 12$ at more down to earth pizza shops in Montreal. Pizza doesn't need to be fancied up, it's perfect the way it was meant to be and it in no way should be so expensive. But rich pricks seem to think paying a lot of money for food is important. I won't be found dead anywhere I can get a burrito for a dollar but I don't think a 12 inch paper thin pizza cheaply topped is worth 16$. Don't get taken in by the cool sounding word Rapini, it's cabbage. A tasty cabbage, but still just common cabbage that can grow anywhere. It's said that pizza is like sex, even when it's bad, it's still good. While true in this case, it was like being stuck in the missionary position with an unskilled high-priced hooker.
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